Taken from his masterpiece De Ecclesia, vol. 1, pages 630-632. My translation. Corrections are most welcomed (emphasis mine)

Quote:

Truly, from both opinions (Papa deponendus-Papa depositus), the last one seems to retain the only way in which the most certain principles of the ecclesiastical constitution are kept unhurt. And he who reads the reasons gathered by Cajetan in order to convince of the first opinion, will easily see, how in vain he tries to show how these three things can exist at the same time, namely:

1) That the Pope, once he becomes heretic is not deposed from the pontificate, either by divine or human law.

2) That the Pope, while remaining Pope, has no superior upon earth.

3) That if the Pope diverts from the faith, must be, nevertheless, deposed by the Church.

Sed contra est that, if in the case of heresy the Pope that remains Pope may be deposed by the Church, necessarily would follow one of these two things: that deposition doesn’t mean superiority of the one who deposes with regard to the one who is deposed, or that the Pope, remaining Pope, has actually, at least in some cases, superior upon earth. Besides, once you open the door for deposition, there is no reason, either by its nature, or by positive law, by which you must restrict the deposition of the Pope to the sole case of heresy. In this way are destroyed all the principles by mean of which are shown its repugnance and there is but a voluntary rule to which is united an arbitrary exception.Besides, the reasons by which Cajetan rejects the opinion of his adversaries hardly have any value. “You can see, he says, that the heretical Pope is not ipso facto deprived (of the pontificate) neither by divine nor human law, by this reason: if the other Bishops are heretics are not deprived ipso facto, either by divine law or by human law. Therefore, neither the Pope. Conclusion follows since the Pope is not in a worst condition that the rest of the Bishops. What I just said is proved in this way: the Bishop who believes against faith, only by means of an internal act is truly, properly and perfectly heretical and is not deprived ipso facto. There are two statements in this affirmation. The first is that by an internal act you are perfectly heretical and this is manifest per se… the second, on the other hand, is proved… since such heretic is not excommunicated; the Church cannot excommunicate what she cannot judge. Ergo much less he is deprived of the power of jurisdiction delegated by man, etc” (Tract. 1 de auct. Papae et Concilii, chapter 19). Here you can see that the sole reason given by Cajetan resides in the fact that in order to have heresy it is enough the interior act, and that jurisdiction is never lost by reason of the interior heresy. The argument, therefore, is the following: the Bishop doesn’t lose his power by mean of an interior and occult per se heresy; therefore, the heretical Bishop is never deprived ipso facto of his Episcopal jurisdiction; ergo, neither is the Pope deprived, since he is not in a worst condition. Nevertheless we must take into account that we are not dealing here with heresy precisely as a sin against the virtue of faith in the internal forum of both God and conscience, but rather purely and simply of the heresy which has the power to cut the man from the visible body of the Church and which is directly opposed to the outward profession of the Catholic religion. This heresy is not interior and occult but only exterior and manifest, as we widely explained in Question 7, Thesis 11, paragraph 2. In fact, the bound by which he belonged to the visible structure of the ecclesiastical society is broken not by secretly disbelieving, but rather by openly professing not to believe those things proposed to the faithful in order to be believed with Catholic faith, and in this way he loses immediately his membership along with all the titles it necessarily presupposes. Therefore, given the hypothesis of the Pope who would become manifest heretical, we must conclude, without doubt, that he would lose the pontifical power ipso facto, since, once he is unfaithful, he would put himself, by his own will, outside the body if the Church, as rightly say the authors that wrongly, it seems, contradicts Cajetan.

I can´t understand how anybody may defend Cayetan´s view here. His whole foundation is based on something obviously wrong, since we argue that the reason why the Pope would lose his office is because he would lose membership, and he who is not member cannot be head. Yet Cajetan speaks of internal heretic and confuses everything. I think Billot is completely right here

Question about where he says, "In fact, the bound by which he belonged to the visible structure of the ecclesiastical society is broken not by secretly disbelieving, but rather by openly professing not to believe those things proposed to the faithful in order to be believed with Catholic faith, and in this way he loses immediately his membership along with all the titles it necessarily presupposes..."

So does "openly professing not to believe those things proposed etc." simply consist in openly contradicting a truth proposed for belief, or must one openly claim to disagree with a Catholic teaching? Does the distinction between material and formal heresy make a difference here? In other words, if the Pope were to simply claim that "there is salvation outside the Church," for example - which would clearly be heretical, materially - would that be enough to sever his unity with the "ecclesiastical society"? Or would have to also say something like "I deny the Church's teaching that there is no salvation outside the Church"?

So is the distinguishing factor merely internal vs. external heresy, or do material and formal heresy come into play at all as well?

_________________In Christ,Jonathan Culbreath

http://foretasteofwisdom.blogspot.com/

Thu Dec 05, 2013 11:35 pm

Cristian Jacobo

Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:49 pmPosts: 552Location: Argentina

Re: Billot against "Papa depondendus" nonsense.

The Maestro wrote:

Question about where he says, "In fact, the bound by which he belonged to the visible structure of the ecclesiastical society is broken not by secretly disbelieving, but rather by openly professing not to believe those things proposed to the faithful in order to be believed with Catholic faith, and in this way he loses immediately his membership along with all the titles it necessarily presupposes..."

So does "openly professing not to believe those things proposed etc." simply consist in openly contradicting a truth proposed for belief, or must one openly claim to disagree with a Catholic teaching? Does the distinction between material and formal heresy make a difference here? In other words, if the Pope were to simply claim that "there is salvation outside the Church," for example - which would clearly be heretical, materially - would that be enough to sever his unity with the "ecclesiastical society"? Or would have to also say something like "I deny the Church's teaching that there is no salvation outside the Church"?

So is the distinguishing factor merely internal vs. external heresy, or do material and formal heresy come into play at all as well?

Well, this is a complex subject. I don´t have it very clear.

This is the teaching of Billot himself on this topic (translated by J. Daly), see if it helps:

Quote:

"Heretics are divided into formal and material. Formal heretics are those to whom the authority of the Church is sufficiently known; while material heretics are those who, being in invincible ignorance of the Church herself, in good faith choose some other guiding rule. So the heresy of material heretics is not imputable as sin and indeed it is not necessarily incompatible with that supernatural faith which is the beginning and root of all justification. For they may explicitly believe the principal articles, and believe the others, though not explicitly, yet implicitly, through their disposition of mind and good will to adhere to whatever is sufficiently proposed to them as having been revealed by God. In fact they can still belong to the body of the Church by desire and fulfil the other conditions necessary for salvation. Nonetheless, as to their actual incorporation in the visible Church of Christ, which is our present subject, our thesis makes no distinction between formal and material heretics, understanding everything in accordance with the notion of material heresy just given, which indeed is the only true and genuine one. For, if you understand by the expression material heretic one who, while professing subjection to the Church's Magisterium in matters of faith, nevertheless still denies something defined by the Church because he did not know it was defined, or, by the same token, holds an opinion opposed to Catholic doctrine because he falsely thinks that the Church teaches it, it would be quite absurd to place material heretics outside the body of the true Church; but on this understanding the legitimate use of the expression would be entirely perverted. For a material sin is said to exist only when what belongs to the nature of the sin takes place materially, but without advertence or deliberate will. But the nature of heresy consists in withdrawal from the rule of the ecclesiastical Magisterium and this does not take place in the case mentioned [of someone who is resolved to believe all that the Church teaches but makes a mistake as to what her teaching consists in], since this is a simple error of fact concerning what the rule dictates. And therefore there is no scope for heresy, even materially." (Cardinal Louis Billot S.J., De Ecclesia Christi, 4th edition, pp.289-290.)

That is, only those who are formal heretics leave the Church by their own act, as Billot elegantly, forcefully and clearly explains. Who are these men? Those who doubt or deny a dogma despite knowing better. How do we judge this? That is, how do we identify, accurately, such men? Is it necessary that they admit that they know better? No, and that is ridiculous, and I think we all see that it's a ridiculous claim.

Here's de Lugo, quoted by da Silveira: "...Neither is it always demanded in the external forum that there be a warning and a reprimand as described above for somebody to be punished as heretical and pertinacious, and such a requirement is by no means always admitted in practice by the Holy Office. For if it could be established in some other way, given that the doctrine is well known, given the kind of person involved and given the other circumstances, that the accused could not have been unaware that his thesis was opposed to the Church, he would be considered as a heretic from this fact… The reason for this is clear because the exterior warning can serve only to ensure that someone who has erred understands the opposition which exists between his error and the teaching of the Church. If he knew the subject through books and conciliar definitions much better than he could know it by the declarations of someone admonishing him then there would be no reason to insist on a further warning for him to become pertinacious against the Church." (De Lugo, disp.XX, sect.IV,n.l57-158). See: http://strobertbellarmine.net/essayonheresy.htm

I think that settles it. Does Bergoglio know the teaching of the Church? Yes. He knows better.

_________________In Christ our King.

Fri Dec 06, 2013 11:16 am

Admin

Site Admin

Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 2:30 pmPosts: 4334

Re: Billot against "Papa depondendus" nonsense.

Cristian Jacobo wrote:

This is the teaching of Billot himself on this topic (translated by J. Daly), see if it helps:

Quote:

"Heretics are divided into formal and material. Formal heretics are those to whom the authority of the Church is sufficiently known; while material heretics are those who, being in invincible ignorance of the Church herself, in good faith choose some other guiding rule. So the heresy of material heretics is not imputable as sin and indeed it is not necessarily incompatible with that supernatural faith which is the beginning and root of all justification. For they may explicitly believe the principal articles, and believe the others, though not explicitly, yet implicitly, through their disposition of mind and good will to adhere to whatever is sufficiently proposed to them as having been revealed by God. In fact they can still belong to the body of the Church by desire and fulfil the other conditions necessary for salvation. Nonetheless, as to their actual incorporation in the visible Church of Christ, which is our present subject, our thesis makes no distinction between formal and material heretics, understanding everything in accordance with the notion of material heresy just given, which indeed is the only true and genuine one. For, if you understand by the expression material heretic one who, while professing subjection to the Church's Magisterium in matters of faith, nevertheless still denies something defined by the Church because he did not know it was defined, or, by the same token, holds an opinion opposed to Catholic doctrine because he falsely thinks that the Church teaches it, it would be quite absurd to place material heretics outside the body of the true Church; but on this understanding the legitimate use of the expression would be entirely perverted. For a material sin is said to exist only when what belongs to the nature of the sin takes place materially, but without advertence or deliberate will. But the nature of heresy consists in withdrawal from the rule of the ecclesiastical Magisterium and this does not take place in the case mentioned [of someone who is resolved to believe all that the Church teaches but makes a mistake as to what her teaching consists in], since this is a simple error of fact concerning what the rule dictates. And therefore there is no scope for heresy, even materially." (Cardinal Louis Billot S.J., De Ecclesia Christi, 4th edition, pp.289-290.)

Cristian, could you please do me a favour? Is that text from Daly the same as this reference? "This heresy is not interior and occult but only exterior and manifest, as we widely explained in Question 7, Thesis 11, paragraph 2."

This is the teaching of Billot himself on this topic (translated by J. Daly), see if it helps:

Quote:

"Heretics are divided into formal and material. Formal heretics are those to whom the authority of the Church is sufficiently known; while material heretics are those who, being in invincible ignorance of the Church herself, in good faith choose some other guiding rule. So the heresy of material heretics is not imputable as sin and indeed it is not necessarily incompatible with that supernatural faith which is the beginning and root of all justification. For they may explicitly believe the principal articles, and believe the others, though not explicitly, yet implicitly, through their disposition of mind and good will to adhere to whatever is sufficiently proposed to them as having been revealed by God. In fact they can still belong to the body of the Church by desire and fulfil the other conditions necessary for salvation. Nonetheless, as to their actual incorporation in the visible Church of Christ, which is our present subject, our thesis makes no distinction between formal and material heretics, understanding everything in accordance with the notion of material heresy just given, which indeed is the only true and genuine one. For, if you understand by the expression material heretic one who, while professing subjection to the Church's Magisterium in matters of faith, nevertheless still denies something defined by the Church because he did not know it was defined, or, by the same token, holds an opinion opposed to Catholic doctrine because he falsely thinks that the Church teaches it, it would be quite absurd to place material heretics outside the body of the true Church; but on this understanding the legitimate use of the expression would be entirely perverted. For a material sin is said to exist only when what belongs to the nature of the sin takes place materially, but without advertence or deliberate will. But the nature of heresy consists in withdrawal from the rule of the ecclesiastical Magisterium and this does not take place in the case mentioned [of someone who is resolved to believe all that the Church teaches but makes a mistake as to what her teaching consists in], since this is a simple error of fact concerning what the rule dictates. And therefore there is no scope for heresy, even materially." (Cardinal Louis Billot S.J., De Ecclesia Christi, 4th edition, pp.289-290.)

Cristian, could you please do me a favour? Is that text from Daly the same as this reference? "This heresy is not interior and occult but only exterior and manifest, as we widely explained in Question 7, Thesis 11, paragraph 2."

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum